


Make It Up As I Go

by Ciwu



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Catra/Entrapta if you squint, Everyone else shows up as minor characters, Gen, Mild Language, Neuroatypical Entrapta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-25 23:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17734772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciwu/pseuds/Ciwu
Summary: Combat training is mandatory for all members of the Horde.  Entrapta doesn't hate it, but she can really think of better ways to spend her mornings.  She doesn't have a choice though if she wants to be a part of this and spending time with her new friends isn't so bad, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mike Shinoda's "Make It Up As I Go", a song I listened to quite a lot while writing this.
> 
> _I didn't have the patience left to explain_  
>  _Didn't wanna wait while nobody came_  
>  _I know the path ahead's uneven_  
>  _But while I'm breathing_  
>  _I have to make my own lane_

Entrapta is not very good at sleeping. Her parents, back when they were alive, used to joke (usually through gritted teeth) that it was strange she could be so good at such complex things as science and mechanics but didn’t understand human basics like being quiet or the rules of etiquette.

Or falling asleep and _staying_ asleep.

It’s funny because noise doesn’t usually bother her. Entrapta is always surrounded by noise. The clicking of keys on a keyboard, the soft whirrs, beeps, and whistles of robots, or these days, the sounds of Horde soldiers patrolling the hallways. No, noise doesn’t bother her. What bothers Entrapta while she’s sleeping is _motion_.

She’s tried and failed to explain this to others before, especially her parents. It’s not the sound of footsteps entering her room that wakes her up, it’s the patterns of the air shifting as someone moves through the room. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and nobody has ever gotten close enough to touch her while she was sleeping but she’s sure it would end badly for all involved.

So when Catra opens the door to Entrapta’s room one morning and throws something towards the bed, Entrapta’s hair tendrils snatch it out of the air before it can whack her in the face.

“...Damn, that was kind of impressive.”

Entrapta opens her eyes blearily to stare at the item. It’s some kind of metal retractable staff with a grip in the middle. She finds a button on the grip that retracts and extends the staff segments and presses it a few times just to watch it do so.

“Whazzis?” She mumbles eventually, voice still heavy with sleep.

“It’s a training staff for combat practice. All the cadets have one.”

Entrapta yawns and sits up in her bed, thin sheet falling around her waist. The Horde’s beds are utilitarian and aren’t much more than mattresses of varying comfort levels depending on rank, plus some lightweight sheets and a small pillow. Catra admitted to her once that she’d expected to hear complaints from a princess about the accommodations, but Entrapta doesn’t care. A bed is just a place to sleep and Entrapta can and has done that sitting in her chair, head on her keyboard back at home.

Catra had followed that up by asking Entrapta if she ever got cold at night all alone in her bed but she’d looked a little put out when Entrapta responded by explaining that the Fright Zone was in fact much warmer than Dryl was, so if anything she found it uncomfortably hot. Catra had sighed and said “Don’t know what I expected from that,” which was weird because it wasn’t like Entrapta had thought Catra should know what the average temperature in Dryl was.

“Get dressed and grab some breakfast,” Catra orders, shaking Entrapta out of her distraction. “You’ve got a full day today.”

“And what am I supposed to do with this?” Entrapta asks, hefting the training staff. “Is it broken? Do you need me to fix it? Or I could improve it? The extension could probably be snappier.”

Catra rolls her eyes. “I just told you, it’s for cadet combat training.”

“I’m not a cadet,” Entrapta points out, and indeed she is not. Entrapta doesn’t officially have any rank at all. She’s got free reign to do whatever she wants with the tech (under Catra’s supervision, but Catra doesn’t understand what she’s doing so that’s kind of pointless) but she doesn’t have a position in the Horde chain of command.

“No, but you’re about on the level with one in terms of your fighting skills.”

Entrapta doesn’t disagree with that assessment but doesn’t see the point either. “That’s because I’m not a fighter? I’m an engineer.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Catra says flatly. “Every member of the Horde is expected to be capable of defending themselves if necessary. What happens if the Rebellion breaks in again for some reason and you get cornered in your lab?”

“I have Emily.”

Catra crosses the room in just a few strides and pokes Entrapta in the forehead. Not with her claws, fortunately. “Look, I get it. You’re used to relying on your tech to protect yourself. And it’s pretty good tech so it’s always worked before, but what happens if it doesn’t? The Rebellion always relied on their precious runestones to protect them and they were helpless when you shut them down. You’ve got to be ready to deal with a situation where the only thing you have to depend on is yourself.”

The memory of a castle full of robots re-programmed to be hostile to _everyone_ floats across the surface of Entrapta’s mind and she winces. “So you want me to do combat training with the cadets?”

Catra grimaces. “No. I don’t trust any of them not to hold a grudge. I’m training you myself.”

“Oh. What about my experiments?”

“We’re only going to be spending the mornings on this. You can get back to your lab after lunch. Spending too much time training at once is a good way to hurt yourself.”

“Mornings as in plural?”

Catra smirks as she turns to leave. “Are you kidding? It takes years to train cadets. But you’re a smart girl - I’m sure you’ll pick it up faster than that, right?”

Entrapta’s smart enough to see it for the bait it is, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t believe it. “Sure, how hard could it be? It’s just hitting people with a stick.”

“I’m gonna knock you flat on your ass,” Catra laughs loudly as she leaves the room and closes the door behind her.

Entrapta grumbles to herself once she’s alone. She’ll have to master this quickly because giving up her morning lab time to something as pointless as combat training is really going to suck.

 

~

 

She’s right - it sucks.

They’re in a small training room with padded floors that seems to be meant for younger children. Or at least - that’s their audience. Ten young children, all roughly age seven or thereabouts, are seated against the far wall of the training room and have been eagerly watching Entrapta flunk combat training all morning.

According to Catra, the kids were there because their normal combat instructor had the flu, along with the other half of the class. Catra was filling in. The kids were still working on hand to hand training and hadn’t moved on to staff training yet but Catra figured since she was going to be teaching Entrapta the basics, these kids could get a head start by watching.

And the basics had been, well, basic. The staff felt awkward to use and Entrapta smacked herself with it more than a few times, but she could easily follow the stances Catra drilled her on and could even replicate most of the moves with only minor difficulty.

The problems came when they moved on from the basics to sparring.

Entrapta cannot land a single hit on Catra. The staff feels too clunky in her hands and the range on it isn’t as far as she’d initially thought. Catra doesn’t even bother to block most of them, just ducking lightly to the side with a smirk. And as for her defense, well… Catra hasn’t knocked her on her ass yet, but only because Entrapta’s hair always catches her.

Entrapta gets her legs swept out from under her _again_ and she grunts in irritation but still doesn’t hit the floor, buoyed up by her pigtails. Her shins are going to be very bruised tomorrow.

Catra looks equally irritated. “I’m going to do that again but slower this time - you have got to learn how to _block_ things, Entrapta.”

“I’m trying,” she snaps but takes a breath and focuses.

Slowed down, the swing is easy to block of course. Move her staff just like she was shown and intercept the hit before it lands - she gets that. She’s clumsy with her staff but she understood what to do the first time she was told. This isn’t the part that’s hard.

Catra’s staff continues moving slowly in other strikes - chest, head, arms, stomach, back to a leg sweep - in a slow but random rotation. Given sufficient time to see what’s happening, Entrapta follows along easily.

Then Catra pauses for a moment and the staff swings wide and fast, sweeping Entrapta’s legs out from under her again.

There’s scattered giggling from the children.

“I don’t get it,” Catra says. “I’ve seen you climb all over this base like the world’s smartest monkey - I know you’re graceful and I know you’re fast. But you have the _worst_ reaction time.”

“I told you I don’t do combat,” Entrapta complains.

“But you caught the staff I threw at you even though you were half asleep.”

“My hair caught it,” Entrapta corrects.

Catra stops spinning her staff and stares at her. “... Does your hair have a mind of its own?”

Entrapta blinks in confusion at the sudden change in topic. “No? I control it. Why?”

“Then why does it matter that your hair caught the staff?”

“If I throw a ball at you and Scorpia, which of you has an easier time catching it? The person with pincers or the person with dextrous hands?” Entrapta counters. “You’re comparing me catching a staff with my hair - which is large and can form many, many prehensile tendrils to grip with as soon as it makes contact with what you threw - with me failing to block your attacks with a stick I’ve never used before.”

Catra mulls this over for a moment, then swings her staff hard and fast at one of Entrapta’s pigtails.

Entrapta’s hair doesn’t stop the swing exactly. It moves with the momentum of the staff but by the time it’s bouncing off her hip, all the kinetic energy is gone and her hair is wrapped around the staff in a tight grip. Entrapta looks down at it, then back up at Catra, then shrugs and yanks the staff out of Catra’s hands and tosses it behind her with a clatter.

“... Huh,” Catra says. “Alright, I can work with this. Just one question first.”

“Yeah?”

“Why weren’t you doing that before?”

Entrapta hesitates. “You told me to use the staff. I thought using my hair would be considered cheating.”

Catra’s eyebrows shoot upwards. Without looking away from Entrapta, she barks, “Cadet Royce!”

One of the loudest giggling children startles and snaps to attention. “Yes, Force Commander!”

“Define cheating.”

“Breaking the rules to get an edge over your opponent, Force Commander,” the boy replies dutifully.

“And what do you call someone who cheats at combat, Cadet?”

“The winner, Force Commander.”

Catra nods in satisfaction. “There’s no such thing as cheating in combat. There’s only winning or losing. And if you’re not in a training situation, it’s the difference between life and death. I gave you the staff because I thought you’d prefer it over hand to hand, not because it was the only thing I wanted you to use. It’s usually safer to keep some distance from your opponent.”

Entrapta brightens up. “Yes! That’s why I use my hair!”

Faster than Catra can react, Entrapta’s hair snaps out and wraps around one of Catra’s ankles, yanking hard. Catra yowls in surprise as she’s pulled upside down into the air, dangling from one of Entrapta’s pigtails.

The children all gasp and shrink back against the wall.

“See?”

Upside down, Catra stares at her slackjawed. The entire room is perfectly silent and Entrapta gets the creeping suspicion she’s done something wrong, but she’s not sure what. Is cheating in a fight one of those complicated social rules where you’re only allowed to do it sometimes and you’re supposed to just somehow _know_ when it’s appropriate and when it’s not? Entrapta’s never been good at those.

Then Catra starts laughing.

Entrapta swings Catra gently enough not to chuck her across the room but enough to give her some momentum to flip upright when Entrapta lets her go. Catra lands gracefully on her feet, still laughing.

“Alright, alright. I can _definitely_ work with this. Change of plans - from now on your mornings are spent sparring with either me or Scorpia. She’s strong, I’m fast, you need to get used to both types of opponents, got it?”

Entrapta had kind of hoped she’d just proven she didn’t need combat training but apparently not. “Okay? For how long?”

“Until I tell you to stop,” Catra says firmly. “You’re done for today though. You brats can get out of here,” she adds with a jerk of her head towards the kids.

The kids leave in a scramble and Entrapta can’t blame them. She’s eager to get out of here too.

“Is this really necessary?” She can’t resist asking.

Catra retrieves her own staff and takes Entrapta’s as well before she answers. “Look, I get that combat isn’t your thing. The Horde has plenty of technicians who barely passed basic combat. But they _did_ all pass. You’re really good at taking people by surprise and that’s not a bad thing - ambushing your opponent is always a good option if you have it - but one day you’re probably going to end up fighting people who know what you can do and you need to have an answer for that problem when it comes up.”

Entrapa considers this. “So… I should think of it like research?”

“ _Yes_. It’s research, that’s it exactly,” Catra agrees. “Sparring is about practicing what works and learning what doesn’t in a… relatively safe situation. Get creative with it. It might not pan out, but then at least you’ll know that without getting hurt.”

“Research,” Entrapta repeats, more to herself than Catra. “Okay, I’m game! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get some lunch and some ice for my shins. I’ll be in the lab if you need me!”

 

~

 

Entrapta had hoped sparring would suck less once she was “allowed” to use her hair instead of some dumb stick. Unfortunately, it still sucks. The Horde takes combat training very seriously and for all that Scorpia is pulling her punches, she’s not going _that_ easy on Entrapta.

“I win.”

Entrapta’s back hits the floor hard and she stays there for a moment to catch her breath. Now that she’s using her hair to fight with, it’s not always available to stop her from hitting the ground and she’s still getting used to the way it drives all the air out of her lungs.

A pincer appears in her field of vision and Entrapta briefly wonders how long she could get away with just staying on the floor.

“C’mon, up. I didn’t throw you that hard,” Scorpia says with a faint laugh.

Entrapta sighs and grabs the pincer with her hand, letting herself be hauled upright. “I’m not used to getting thrown,” she says once she’s on her feet again.

“I figured,” Scorpia says sympathetically. “That’s why I did it. Knowing how to handle a fall is pretty useful. You need to tuck your head more - if I threw you any harder, your skull would bounce off the ground.”

Entrapta grimaces. “Please don’t do that.”

“I’m not _trying_ to give you a concussion, I’m just saying. You should stop clenching your jaw too. You’ll break your teeth.”

If nothing else, Entrapta has to admit she’s learning a great deal about fighting. Don’t tuck your thumbs when you punch, don’t punch somebody in the face if you can help it because your fingers are more fragile than their skull is, aim for soft joints, reach counts for a lot so keep them at a distance if you can, just because you’ve got someone pinned doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you, and maybe the single most important thing Entrapta has learned so far -

_Pay attention._

Scorpia has tied a leather wrap around the end of her tail so that she can hit Entrapta with it without actually paralyzing her and ending the sparring session early. Entrapta has lost… a lot of matches that she’d thought she’d won just because the tail came out of nowhere to smack her in the face or jab her in the ribs.

“You at least did better that time,” Scorpia offers. “You just need to work on your follow up.”

“And by follow up you mean figuring out what I’m supposed to after I’ve got you bound up, right?”

“Yeah! You’re great at restraining someone, but not so good at making sure they stay down, which you definitely need to do if you’re fighting more than one person at once.”

Entrapta considers this. She’s tried punching Scorpia with her hair already and found that while she could use it to push Scorpia backwards, her hair simply isn’t solid enough to cause lasting damage. There’s no bone or muscle inside of it that would give her blows a heavy impact. The main benefit of it is range and flexibility. So if she can’t just pummel someone into unconsciousness (or death, though that makes her wince to imagine) like many Horde soldiers can, she needs another way of incapacitating someone.

 _Oh._ Of course. There’s no such thing as cheating.

“I’m ready for another go,” she says and Scorpia grins at her.

They square up on opposite sides of the training room. There’s no signal for when to go but Entrapta has a significant reach advantage so she’s content to let Scorpia make the first move.

Scorpia lunges forward in a straight line at first before juking to the right for the expected lash of hair, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Entrapta braces herself and just as Scorpia is about to charge into her, she launches herself up and forwards, her hair coiling around Scorpia’s upper arms and using both their momentum to flip herself over onto Scorpia’s back and land with both feet firmly planted on her tail.

Entrapta is not a heavy person by any means but Scorpia’s tail is meant for speed, not strength. Scorpia yelps as her tail is smashed into the ground, in no position to sting anyone. Entrapta’s pigtails yank Scorpia’s arms backwards as far as they can go without dislocating them. Scorpia tries to resist and struggles against the grip on her arms, but she isn’t making any headway and even if she brings her pincers in to try and clamp down on Entrapta’s hair, they both know it won’t hurt her.

“I win,” Entrapta says, finally triumphant.

Scorpia laughs though and instead of yielding, she abruptly stop straining against Entrapta’s hair. Both of them are jerked backwards by how hard Entrapta is pulling on her arms and they topple over in a heap. Entrapta hits the mat first of course and Scorpia lands heavily on top of her, her hooded stinger digging into the back of Entrapta’s thigh.

“ _I_ win,” Scorpia says and Entrapta can only wheeze in agreement. “That was really good though! You’re probably not going to be fighting a lot of people with stingers so you could adapt that to landing on someone’s back and ripping their arms out of their sockets. It’ll put them right out of the fight and if they try to throw themselves backwards - just jump off and let them hit the ground.”

Entrapta does not relish the idea of just “ripping someone’s arm out of their socket” but it’s more fixable than choking someone out or breaking their neck, which have been the most commonly suggested tactics for her so far. But if that’s what people are going to suggest to her then it’s on her to come up with better options.

“Go again?” Entrapta asks.

“Hell yeah.”

 

~

 

Sparring with Catra is harder than sparring with Scorpia. Scorpia’s stronger but she’s a large, slow target. Catra is… Catra is very fast.

It’s not like Entrapta can beat either of them in a fight though. By the end of the first two weeks, Entrapta feels like one big walking bruise from the amount of times she’s been kicked, punched, thrown, scratched, and on one memorable occasion, bitten.

It’s been quite the experience.

“So I’ve figured something out about you,” Catra drawls at the end of a session that has left Entrapta bleeding in a few places. It’s nothing major and Entrapta’s given herself worse injures from fixing her robots but the cuts still sting.

“That I’m not very good at fighting?” Entrapta asks and it comes out more bitter than she means it to.

Catra isn’t offended by it. “Hah, I knew that already! No, I mean I figured out why you’re so bad at it.”

Entrapta squints at her. “Lack of muscle definition?”

“You’re terrible at reading your opponents.”

Entrapta freezes.

“You’re good at predicting behavior if you’ve seen someone do it over and over again,” Catra clarifies. “But you don’t notice the small movements or the muscles tensing that tells you someone’s about to throw a kick or a punch, so you can’t react until it’s already happening. It’s like you’re fighting on a split second delay compared to everyone else. And that split second matters.”

Very suddenly, Entrapta wants to go back to her lab. Or her room. The mess hall even. Anywhere but here. In Entrapta’s experience, this conversation never ends well. It always devolves into screaming and why can’t she just _see_ that someone doesn’t care about what she’s talking about and why can’t she just _tell_ by looking at someone that they don’t like her and they might as well be demanding to know why she can’t just learn to fly but they don’t see it that way and just because it’s so easy for _them_ to -

“Entrapta?”

She jolts back into focus and Catra is staring at her.

“My apologies,” Entrapa says stiffly. “If your hypothesis is correct then I don’t see much reason for me to continue with these lessons since I’ll clearly never be good at them.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.”

Catra’s hand snaps out and grabs Entrapta by the forearm just above her gloves, claws digging in enough to be felt but not enough to break skin. “Do _not_ tell me what I meant to say,” she growls. “You’re working on a delay - we can’t fix that but it’s fine. We just have to compensate for it.”

“Fine?” Entrapta repeats. “It’s fine?” It’s never been fine before. It’s always been very much _not_ fine.

Catra scowls at her. “It’s not that big of a deal. If you can’t do it then I can’t teach you how to do it - it’s just instinct, not something you consciously think about it in combat. But we can work around that. I only noticed it was a problem because you fall for feints every single time.”

“I… didn’t realize you were feinting. I thought you were just reacting very quickly to my blocks because you’re more highly trained than me.”

Catra sighs and lets go of Entrapta’s wrist. “I mean if you didn’t block the initial feint then yeah, I might really hit you with it but it’d be weaker because I’m not putting a lot of power in it to start with.”

“...What am I supposed to do?” Entrapta asks.

“If it was anyone else, I’d say they should focus on spotting the real attack and just dodge the feinted one, but for you? We just need to change your fighting style entirely. You can’t stay on the defensive - you’re good at keeping people at bay but if they get into close combat with you, you’re in trouble. You need to be more aggressive.”

Entrapta shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t like hurting people.”

“I’m not putting you on the front lines, Entrapta,” Catra says with a wide gesture in the general direction of the Whispering Woods. “The only reason we’re having these lessons at all is so you can protect yourself if someone’s trying to hurt _you._  And if you stay on the defensive, they’re going to.”

“...Okay,” she says quietly.

Catra’s ears go flat for a moment and she glances away. “...Take a break tomorrow. You’ve earned it. I’d tell you to sleep in but I know you’re just going to spend the extra time in your lab.”

She will and she’s already looking forward to it.

“Day after tomorrow though? You’re back with me again and I want to see you on an all out offensive. We’re gonna find out what you can do when you’re not backing yourself into a corner. Dismissed.”

 

~

 

It takes around a month before Entrapta wins her first fight. It’s not a fair fight, but Catra’s told her repeatedly that only losers care about fights being _fair,_  so Entrapta thinks it still counts and Catra doesn’t disagree.

It starts with Catra being late to their sparring session. Entrapta is not surprised by this as she’d overheard in the mess hall that there’d been some kind of skirmish with the Rebellion last night and Catra was usually involved in those.

Entrapta knows better than to just leave the training room because Catra isn’t there - that’ll just mean a lot of yelling when Catra does show up and then has to go retrieve her from the lab - so she amuses herself by scaling the walls and seeing how practical it is for her to brace herself against the corner of the ceiling and lurk there like an overgrown spider. Turns out it makes the muscles in her legs strain a bit but there’s a convenient bit of pipe for her hair to latch on to so it’s not impossible.

She’s about to move to another corner without a pipe and see how long she can maintain that when Catra walks into the room.

By coincidence, the corner Entrapta has wedged herself into is directly to the right of the doorway so Catra doesn’t see her. This… This is a rare opportunity.

Catra curses when she realizes the room is apparently empty. “Oh for - I _told_ her just because I might be late didn’t mean she got the day off. This is the last thing I need right now, ugh.”

Entrapta lets her hair take more of her body weight so she can get her feet flat against the wall in preparation to pounce. She’s seen Catra do this before from trees and she wonders if it always feels this fun when someone doesn’t know you’re there. She can barely keep from giggling.

The moment Catra starts to turn around, Entrapta launches herself off the wall and tackles her headlong, sending both of them end over end. Entrapta was prepared for that and simply tucks her head and rolls with it, taking advantage of Catra’s confusion and alarm to wind her hair around her limbs. By the time they’ve finished tumbling, Entrapta lands on top with Catra wrapped up tightly beneath her.

Nearly nose to nose, Entrapta grins down at Catra. “I win.”

Catra sucks in a sharp breath and tenses beneath Entrapta, trying to find a way to get out of the situation she’s in, but it’s futile. Even Scorpia can’t break out a bind like this - she just doesn’t have to. She’s strong enough to be able to stand up even with Entrapta on top of her and then usually slam her into a wall to shake her off. Catra’s not strong enough to do any such thing and is even struggling to catch her breath with Entrapta sitting fully on top of her.

Catra relaxes abruptly and laughs, though it’s raspier than usual. “Yeah, alright. You win. Get off me.”

Extricating themselves takes a moment but Entrapta can at least loosen her hold quickly enough to let Catra breathe properly.

“Jeez, I was right, huh? You really are the perfect little ambusher.” Catra says once she’s upright again and brushing herself off. “That’s unfortunate.”

Entrapta cocks her head. “Why is that unfortunate?”

Catra waves a hand dismissively. “It’s just a waste of talent is all. I’m never putting you on the front lines if I can help it so it’s not exactly going to see a lot of use in your lab.”

“I could ambush somebody trying to break into my lab.”

“You could,” Catra agrees. “And you should. In fact, let’s try that again so you can practice. Show me how you got up there? Then I’m going to go get Scorpia. I want to see how that works against someone bigger.”

“Yes! Experiments need a wide range of test subjects!” Entrapta says, already climbing back up to her position.

Catra smirks. “Maybe I’ll call in some of the cadets too. I could spend all day watching you pounce on people.”

Over the course of the next few hours, they discover that Entrapta’s ambush technique works well on the small and lightweight but barely at all on larger Horde soldiers. Entrapta flips Kyle so hard that both of them slam into the far wall of the training room, but neither Scorpia nor Rogelio flip at all and just land hard on their backs. Lonnie flips only once and in fact lands on top of Entrapta, but she’s so tightly bound that it doesn’t matter anyway and it still count as a win in Entrapta’s column.

In fact, everyone is so universally surprised by the attack that none of them can stop Entrapta from wrapping them up. This only helps so much against someone as big as Scorpia or Rogelio, but as Catra points out, most people in the Rebellion aren’t that big.

“I mean, if She-Ra barges into your lab then you’re not gonna do much to her. But in that case you should probably just run anyway,” Catra says after Rogelio has picked himself up and patted Entrapta on the head in some sort of congratulatory gesture. “It’d work fine on anyone else though.”

Entrapta can think of several princesses it wouldn’t work on at all for various reasons but as angry as she is with them for leaving her behind, she still hopes she won’t ever be in a position to find out if she can take them in a fight.

“Soooo, does this mean I’m done with combat training?”

Catra snorts. “If you build one robot and it works, are you done?”

Entrapta slumps. She’s _never_ done building robots but at least that’s fun. “No.”

“Exactly. Always room for improvement. We’ll see if we can figure out a way for you to ambush big guys too.”

Rogelio sighs, probably seeing a lot of ambushes in his future, but doesn’t object.

“We’re done for the day though. This was good,” Catra says. “Good job. Dismissed.”

Entrapta doesn’t hear that as often as she’d like to and it sends a bright burst of warmth through her chest. She beams at Catra and throws a salute with both her hand and her hair. “Thank you, Commander!”

Entrapta leaves the training room with a skip in her step and a happy tune hummed under her breath. If Catra or Rogelio have any comment on her giddiness, she doesn’t hear them.

 

~

 

Combat training stops sucking so much after that. Entrapta stops thinking of it as something she’s doing until Catra tells her she doesn’t have to anymore and starts thinking of it as simply her morning routine. It’s not how she’d prefer to spend her time, but it’s just something to work at and improve upon - a new talent to master.

And she is mastering it. All the cadets have gotten into the habit of checking the ceiling when they enter new rooms and even Catra makes sure to keep careful track of where Entrapta is in the mornings. Only Scorpia hasn’t changed her behavior and Entrapta still can’t reliably take her down anyway, so fair enough.

The strangest part is that Entrapta has to admit she feels safer now. She hadn’t thought of herself as unprotected before but the two days she’d spent in the Horde vents after being abandoned had been frightening. She hadn’t sleep for almost 60 straight hours between planning the Rebellion’s assault on the base and Scorpia letting her nap while Catra retrieved the First Ones’ tech from the Whispering Woods. And the Horde base was active 24/7 so there was never an opportune time to get food or water from the kitchens or mess hall and she’d had to make due with what she could steal from distracted soldiers and cadets. Every single time she’d had to do so, she knew it’d only take one person spotting just a _glimpse_ of her for the entire base to be locked down until she was found, dragged out, and imprisoned.

She hadn’t known at the time that her friends weren’t coming back for her, but she can imagine it now. Entrapta could break out of a lot of things, but force cells were another matter entirely. And she’d probably have been turned over to Shadow Weaver.

But it doesn’t matter now. The low simmer of fear at the back of her skull that she was only part of the Horde for as long as she was in Catra and Scorpia’s good graces had dissipated. Entrapta loved both of her friends dearly and wouldn’t trade them for the world, but she didn’t feel like her life depended on them and that was important to a person’s peace of mind.

She’s safe. She’s capable of defending herself. She has friends. She has Emily. She has her projects. Everything’s great.

“Hey Entrapta. Got some news for you.”

“News? What news?” Entrapta asks, looking up from where’s she bent over a damaged scrap gathering drone Catra had brought her earlier in the day. She’d said a startled cadet accidentally shot it because they ‘thought it was a mouse.’ Entrapta thinks the cadet should be commended for their accuracy in hitting such a small target but also what the heck? It doesn’t look anything like a mouse, come on. “Did you find me something new to play with?”

Catra smirks at her from the doorway. “Could be. A scout ship south of Salineas reported finding what looks like a half sunken ruin sticking out of the ocean at low tide. They thought it was a rock formation until they saw the window.”

Entrapta launches herself across the room, vaulting over her work table to land in front of Catra. “They found a new First Ones ruin?!”

“Not only that, but it’s way outside the Sea Gate - Salineas doesn’t have a claim on anything that’s just out in open waters.”

Entrapta bounces on her hair in excitement. “Oh man, oh man, I can’t wait to see what they bring me.”

Catra smirk widens. “You won’t have to wait. We’re going out there ourselves. Me, you, and Scorpia. The ruins are only accessible at low tide and I have no idea if their tech is waterproof, so we need you to determine how much is still usable. If none of it’s any value, there’s no point in the Horde wasting resources defending it - and it’ll have to be defended once the Rebellion notices all the ships anchored around it.”

“You’re… You’re taking me to _an actual First Ones site?!_ ” Entrapta squeals and tackle-hugs Catra, wrapping her up tightly with both her hair and her actual limbs. “You’re the best person in the whole world! I’m so excited!”

“Alright, alright! Off! I’ve told you I’m not a hugger,” Catra grouses and Entrapta reluctantly disentangles them. “Go get ready to leave, we’re supposed to be on the boat in half an hour.”

As a general rule, Entrapta carries everything she needs on her person at all times unless it’s too large to feasibly do so. And there’s only one thing she wants that’s too large to be in her toolbelt or woven into her hair.

“Can I bring Emily?”

Catra, who had turned to leave, looks back at her over her shoulder. “Is Emily waterproof?”

What a question, is Emily waterproof, honestly. “Of course! She can splash around no problem.”

Emily trills from the corner of the lab in agreement.

Catra stares at Emily dubiously. “Is she waterproof if she gets _completely_ submerged? Because you do remember I said it’s only accessible at low tide, right? And a good chunk of the ruin is underwater all of the time. I don’t need you freaking out if Emily… drowns.”

Oh.

Emily makes a lower, despondent tone.

“Well… how long is the boat trip?”

“Better part of a day to get there and if we don’t arrive at low tide then we’re stuck waiting anyway,” Catra says in a rote tone that sounds like she’s quoting someone directly.

“Oh that’s plenty of time!” Entrapta says, excitement returning immediately. “I’ll work on Emily’s sealing on the boat then. It won’t be an issue!”

Catra eyes her for a moment, then shrugs. “It’s your robot. Grab whatever you need and get down to the dock. If you’re not on the boat in half an hour, we’re leaving without you.”

“You bet!” she says as Catra leaves. Entrapta has no idea where the dock is but that’s fine. A half hour is more than enough time to dig up some schematics of the base and figure it out on her own. She’d trade one of her arms for the chance to investigate a First Ones ruin and she’s definitely not missing her chance now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And they're asking me if I can see the darkness down below_   
>  _And I know it's true, I say I do, and half the time I don't_   
>  _Maybe I can't make what it may take to leave this thing behind_   
>  _But I shut my eyes and cross each line and every time -_

Entrapta isn’t much of a swimmer. She’s not incapable of it, it’s just not something she enjoys. She’s sluggish in the water and she doesn’t like how heavy her hair gets when it’s wet. But it’s not so bad that she won’t tolerate it in the name of science.

Catra, by contrast, seems to _hate_ the water. So much so that she spends the entire boat trip below decks with Entrapta, watching her partially dismantle Emily and rebuild her with stronger seals to keep the water out. Entrapta chatters at Emily the entire time (she’d tried to talk to Catra but had been ignored) and Emily beeps back in a friendly tone. Catra’s called their “talking” annoying before so Entrapta’s surprised she’d rather deal with that then stay on the top deck with Scorpia.

“Hey Catra?” Entrapta asks as she finishes bolting Emily back together.

Catra grunts, eyes closed as she leans against the wall.

“Why’d you even want to come on this mission?”

Catra doesn’t move from her position but she does crack an eye open. “Because you and Scorpia are my team? And other than you, I’m the person with the most experience with First Ones’ tech, seeing as I was the one that retrieved the last one.”

“Sure,” Entrapta says, content to let Catra believe her contributions on that front will be useful in any way. “But you were the one who said it was going to be very wet.”

A sharp hiss comes out from behind Catra’s teeth. It’s a threatening noise but ironically, Entrapta appreciates it. It’s a perfectly clear warning signal that Entrapta is treading on dangerous ground and may want to turn back. If only other people were so obvious about their mounting anger.

“I’m not saying you can’t deal with the water,” Entrapta clarifies. “I’m just surprised you’re putting yourself through this when you don’t have to.”

“ _My_ team, _my_ responsibility,” Catra snarls. “If you want to handle the diving by yourself, then by all means. But a little water dripping from the ceiling won’t kill me.”

“Eh, I’m not that good of a swimmer,” Entrapta admits with a shrug. “Let’s make Scorpia do it.”

“Deal.”

Unfortunately, it’s not just a “little” water dripping throughout the ruins.

The boat arrives while the tide is still too high to enter and anchored outside of the building, it’s not hard to see why it had gone unnoticed for so long. As far as Entrapta can tell, they’re looking at a thin spire jutting out of a partially collapsed tower that extends deep beneath the water and connects to a larger, completely submerged building towards the south. From the outside, the spire is covered in barnacles and seaweed - and a lot of bird droppings on the uppermost parts that are always above water. The spire also has no entrance to get inside that Entrapta can see. And why would it? It was probably only meant to be decoration.

The tower widens significantly beneath the spire so the boat isn’t anchored close enough to the ruins to touch the spire, much to Entrapta’s regret. She badly wants to scrape some of the barnacles off and see what’s underneath. But the soldiers on the boat promise her there are plenty more barnacle encrusted and _not_ barnacle encrusted surfaces she’ll be able to inspect as the tide drops.

The tide is just low enough that Entrapta can see the window in the tower they’ll be entering through as soon as it stops being underwater. The urge to dive in and just go is nearly overpowering, but she isn’t Mermista and she can’t breathe underwater. Although maybe she could invent something to help with that. Table that idea for later maybe, along with any thoughts on Mermista and how helpful she’d be right now if she wasn’t such a bad friend.

It takes a full hour for the tide to drop low enough. Entrapta spends the entire hour hanging over the railing of the boat and staring intently at the window. Scorpia hovers nervously next to her, apparently worried Entrapta is going to fall off, not that it’d be much of a fall and the ocean isn’t even that choppy. Catra is also perched on the railing, although she has her back to the water so Entrapta’s not sure what the point is other than demonstrating her aggressive disinterest in the ocean.

“Commander, it should be safe to go in now,” one of the soldiers offers eventually and even Catra perks up at the chance to relieve her boredom. “You’ll still be wading but you’ll be able to get into that other building.”

“Are you sure?” Scorpia asks. “We could let it go down a little more, couldn’t we?”

“We can wade in,” Catra says brusquely “We need as much time as we can get. How long until the tide starts rising again?”

The captain of the scout ship crosses his arms and says, “You got about two hours or so for the tide to get as low as it’s gonna, then the same amount of time for it to get back up to this point. If you ain’t out in five hours, I’m gonna assume you drowned.”

Catra scowls. “We’ll be back. I’ll keep track of time, since Entrapta won’t.”

Entrapta would have jumped overboard already but Scorpia has the back of her coveralls held tightly in one pincer. “Yeah, yeah, we’re wasting time then, c’mon!” she whines.

Although the window is above the water line, the water in the tower is still up to Catra and Entrapta’s waists and Scorpia’s thighs when they hop into what Entrapta can now see is some kind of reading nook. There’s a wide ledge just below the window that was probably once covered in throw pillows for a cozy place to curl up with a book but is now just solid stone.

“Lights,” Entrapta commands and Emily, holding herself above the water on her extended legs, activates a beam of light.

Half the ceiling of the room they’re in is collapsed. There’s a broken stairway that must have lead upwards once but is now just so much rubble. If there was anything in this room of worth, it’s rotted away now, the victims of a thousand years of water damage. The only thing of note in the room is a doorway leading to the south building that shows no sign of a door having ever been there. Entrapta doesn’t even see hinges or bolt holes where hinges might have once been.

There’s nothing for them in this room, so Emily takes point with Entrapta right behind her and they move down the hallway towards the main building. Entrapta runs her hand along the wall as they walk, feeling for the characteristic deeply carved grooves and sharp angled writing of the First Ones beneath the layer of algae. She can’t feel much unfortunately but the algae _is_ very thick.

“What are you doing?” Catra asks after the third time Entrapta has to pull her glove away from the wall to rinse it off in the water.

“The First Ones left writings and carvings on the walls of many of their buildings. Even small village dwellings that have been uncovered have been found to have murals etched into them sometimes. But I can’t find any here.”

“I remember that stuff,” Catra says. “It just looked like lines to me, but I remember it.”

Catra drags her claws across the wall, scraping away a large chunk of algae that falls into the water with a sad splash. There’s nothing underneath it. Just blank wall.  Catra rakes off another chunk and finds nothing again. Scorpia grinds the spiky exterior of her pincer across the opposite wall, clearing a huge section of algae.

Nothing.

“Does anyone else find this creepy?” Scorpia asks.

“Yes,” Catra says.

“No,” Entrapta says at the same time, then shrugs when Catra glares. “It’s fine, I’m sure. Maybe this hallway just… wasn’t that special to them.”

“There’s something else bothering me about this,” Catra says. “Why’s it made of stone?”

Scorpia and Entrapta both stare at her. “What else do you build a castle out of?” Scorpia asks, perplexed.

“Uhh, metal? Like the one in the Whispering Woods? It was all metal and weird glowy bits. This is just rock.” Catra emphasizes her point by digging her claws into the uncovered stone and dragging them down, leaving gouges in the rock. It makes a horrible scraping noise that sends shivers down Entrapta’s spine.

“Alright, alright, it is weird,” Entrapta concedes, grabbing Catra’s hand with her hair to make her stop. “They might have just been worried the metal would corrode in the saltwater, although that doesn’t speak highly of our chances of finding intact tech. Let’s just get to the main building and see what we can find.”

At the end of the hallway, there’s a half broken stone door wedged in the doorway at an awkward angle. It doesn’t take much for Entrapa and Catra to squirm their way through the broken section, coated in algae as it is, but Emily makes a sad whistle as she proves too large to fit and Scorpia makes a similar noise when her broad, chitinous shoulders are caught on the rocks.

“Uhm, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to follow you guys in there until I destroy this or Emily does.”

“Don’t,” Entrapta says sharply. “The ceiling is already unstable. You could cause a cave in.”

“Just… stand guard there,” Catra says, glancing upwards nervously. “We won’t be long.”

“Can you stand to the side so Emily can shine her light through the opening?” Entrapta asks.

Scorpia lets out a quiet “Oops” before ducking to the side. “I’ll just keep watch then! No problem!”

Entrapta has already lost interest and is splashing eagerly through the large open room they’ve just entered. The water’s gone down to her thighs now and it’s still hard to move in but it’s getting easier every minute. Catra’s moving more cautiously, but Entrapta isn’t paying her much mind - she has science to do.

To Entrapta’s immediate right is a two foot deep shelf spanning the length of the wall at roughly stomach height. It slopes gently downward - 10 degrees at her best guess - away from the wall, making it unlikely anyone was putting things on top of it. Entrapta runs her fingers over it and lets out a giddy sigh of relief when she feels the rigid geometric lines the First Ones used as their symbology. Entrapta can’t read it of course, nobody can, but she can theorize easily that this was a control panel. Assuming the First Ones were taller than her (and Entrapta can admit she’s short), the shelf is at just the right height to be used either sitting or standing.

Too bad the power isn’t on. What could it have been connected to? There doesn’t appear to be any wiring unless it’s within the stone itself. Entrapta crouches and tries to look underneath the shelf without having to get her head wet. It’s hard to see in the narrow gap and even more so with the only source of light being a single beam that isn’t even pointed in her direction.

A garbled shout echoes from down the hallway they came from and Entrapta smacks her head on the stone shelf above her in her haste to stand upright. Her feet slide out from under her on the algae-slick floor and she yelps in pain and surprise as she lands hard on her backside.

“The hell was that?!” Catra yells.

“Uh, stay right there guys,” Scorpia says from the other side of the wall. “One of the guys from the boat is yelling. I’ll go see what he wants.”

“Entrapta?” Catra asks, wading over from where she’d been inspecting the far end of the room.

Entrapta mutters under her breath and carefully probes the top of her head, trying to see if she’s bleeding. Her hair feels damp, but it could very well just be water that splashed on her when she fell over.

“Entrapta, what’s wrong?”

“I hit my head on the control panel when that guy yelled. Can you see if I’m bleeding?”

“Yeah, sure. Come over here where it’s brighter. Did you say control panel?”

Entrapta gets to her feet carefully, now soaked up to the chest. Catra meets her halfway and pulls her into whatever angle she feels she needs.

“Yes, I did. There’s no power to activate it though and I don’t even see how it channels power because there’s no conduits of any kind as far as I can tell,” Entrapta says, closing her eyes as Catra’s claws carefully part her hair to check for injury. “Was it like that in the ruins you found in the woods?”

Catra shakes her head and Entrapta feels the motion more than sees it. “No, the power was already on when I got there but I snuck in after Adora. I didn’t see any power cables like the stuff in your lab though. Things just… glowed. And you’re not bleeding. Your hair probably cushioned the impact.”

“Well that’s something at least. Did you find anything on your side of the room?”

“Stairs leading down, but they’re flooded. Obviously.”

Catra hasn’t actually removed her claws from Entrapta’s hair yet so when another shout comes down the hallway, they both jump and Entrapta gets a sharper tug on her hair than she’d like.

The voice is recognizable this time though - it’s Scorpia.

“Guys! Guys, we gotta hurry. The scout ship spotted another vessel headed this way from Salineas and it’s moving way faster than it should be.”

"That can't be anyone but Mermista," Entrapta says.

“Shit,” Catra curses. “Did they know about this place already?”

Entrapta shakes her head. “Doubtful. More than likely they noticed the uptick in Horde activity in the area and are investigating to see if we found anything."

“We didn’t find anything!” Catra spits. “There’s nothing here to take!”

Entrapta eyes the darker side of the room Catra had been investigating. She can make out the shape of the stairwell now that she knows it’s there. “We didn’t find anything up here, but there might be more deeper in.”

“Are you going to swim down there and get it?” Catra snaps at her.

“Mermista might, if we could figure out a way to trick her into thinking someone from the Horde was down there.”

“She wouldn’t just give it to us though,” Scorpia says.

Catra’s already caught on though and she’s scanning the room with years upon years of ambushing experience. “You could hide under the shelf. Emily won’t be shining her light in here so they’ll have a hard time seeing you as long as you stay as ducked down in the water as you can. I’ll hide too but I’ll pounce first and convince them someone else is down the -”

Catra doesn’t get to finish her sentence before the entire structure _rumbles_. Both of them - and probably Scorpia too out in the hallway - immediately look up to the ceiling, expecting to see it caving in on them. But after a moment, the rumbling stops.

“... Okay, so what was -?”

And then the power turns on.

Entrapta and Catra both startle at the sudden bright lights and crash into each other, which only makes them startle more and they end up dragging each other to the floor.

“Hey guys, uh. Just so you know, the Rebellion’s here. And they brought She-ra,” Scorpia stage whispers from the other side of the door.

Catra swears viciously as she rises up out of the water. “New plan, we get out of here. You’re not going to hide from them in this light with your bright purple mane.”

Entrapta ignores her and launches herself across the room at the control panel.

“Entrapta!” Catra hisses. “We don’t have time!”

“There’s only one exit,” Entrapta says reasonably. “Do you want to fight them in a funnel or do you want to see what I can do?”

The control panel is perfect. It’s beautiful. It’s also completely illegible. Entrapta takes an educated guess based on the theory that the most commonly used buttons would be in the middle for easy access and hits one at random.

It’s a good thing the lights are already on or Entrapta would wince as the section of wall above the control panel _turns transparent_ and beams bright sunlight directly into their faces as it gives them a perfect view of the open ocean. There’s no sign of either their ship or the Rebellion’s but Entrapta’s not surprised since they should be on the other side of the building.

“What the hell were they doing with this place, looking at fish?!” Catra demands.

“Fish can be interesting,” Entrapta says distractedly and hits a different middle button.

There’s another shout from far down the corridor but it’s not Scorpia so Entrapta doesn’t care.

“Oh hey, good job, I think you closed the door to the tower on them,” Scorpia says. “They have Glimmer with them though so you only bought us about a minute…”

“Great, now _we_ have no way out,” Catra groans.

Entrapta’s middle button theory is not working out so she goes for drastic action instead and locates a very isolated button instead. “I wish I had time to copy these symbols down,” she complains before pressing it.

The building rumbles again, much harder this time. Entrapta’s hair snaps out to drag Catra closer so they won’t be separated if the ceiling starts falling in. Entrapta backs herself up against the control panel, hoping it’s the most well reinforced area of the room. She and Catra are pressed chest to chest as she tries to form a shield over their heads with her hair and hopes for the best.

There’s a bizarre sucking sound like a giant straw slurping and Catra gasps at something over Entrapta’s shoulder. Entrapta twists to look and is dumbstruck to realize they’re _rising_. The entire building is lifting as some unseen mechanism pushes it upwards. The sucking noise, Entrapta realizes, is the water draining. She glances down and while the floor is slick with wet algae, it’s not covered in water anymore either.

The rumbling stops abruptly, as does the sucking noise. The silence is eerie and Entrapta has no idea if something else is supposed to happen next. Then there’s a noise from further down the corridor and Catra grabs Entrapta’s shoulder, claws digging in just enough to draw pinpricks of blood, and starts dragging her towards the stairs.

“Scorpia, if you can break that door down, now would be a good time!” Catra shouts.

Scorpia yells back something but Entrapta can’t hear it because she’s already halfway down the stairs. Her hair is getting covered in algae as she’s forced to use it to keep her balance on the slippery steps. She’s excited though - she gets to see _more_.

Catra nearly trips over a fish flopping helplessly at the bottom of the stairs and she kicks it to the side with a snarl. “There had better be another way out of here. And if this building starts sinking again and we drown, I’m finding you in the afterlife and I’m going to kick your ass.”

“I would be interested in testing your hypothesis that ghosts are both real and capable of fighting,” Entrapta agrees. “In the meantime, does anything down here look familiar to you?”

Catra darts her eyes around, looking at the symbols on the wall. “No. Just pick a direction and I’ll follow you. We’re not splitting up.”

Entrapta doesn’t waste her breath agreeing. She picks a direction and goes. Catra, true to her word, follows.

Entrapta knows what she’s looking for, she just doesn’t know how to find it. Under optimal circumstances, she’d strip the entire structure of any tech that wasn’t built into the walls and even that she’d pull apart to study. But if Entrapta is forced to prioritize, the most important thing is whatever the building’s power source is.

They rip through rooms as quickly as they can find them. Entrapta pockets whatever small shiny things won’t slow her down, but she doesn’t have time to stop and examine them yet and since none of them shut the lights off when she picked them up, none of them are the power source.

“Maybe it’s centralized?” Entrapta rambles, more to herself than Catra. “I estimate five stories on this building based on how high off the water we were and we’re on four now. Three would be logical. Did you see any more stairs?”

Catra turns on a dime, her claws giving her better traction in the muck than Entrapta. “Yeah, we passed it a room ago. Wouldn’t you put a power source in the basement though? Maybe it’s on the lowest level.”

“You put a heat based power generator in a basement because heat rises,” Entrapta corrects. “Everything in the Fright Zone that doesn’t run off the Black Garnet is run on coal. The coal furnaces are underground and help warm the base, but the Black Garnet is centrally located. You’ve never noticed that the entire base is built around it?”

“Whatever,” Catra snaps.

The third floor has no more clearer directions than the fourth did and there’s shouting coming from the direction of the stairs.

“We’re out of time,” Catra says.

Entrapta is confused. “You want to go back up?”

“No. We need to find a way out. We’re splitting up. Keep looking for your power source and if you find it, great, come find me. If I find something that looks likely, I’ll get it for you. If you find a way out of this crappy building, then _stay there_. Don’t leave the third floor unless it’s life or death.”

Entrapta nods and turns to leave, but Catra grabs the front of Entrapta’s coveralls and drags her in close. “I mean it, Entrapta! Stay put so I can find you and we can both leave, alright? Otherwise I have to come looking for you.”

“I got it,” Entrapta says meekly, staring up at Catra’s narrowed eyes.

Catra releases her and heads in the opposite direction.

It takes a moment for Entrapta to remember what she was even doing but once she does, she takes off at a sprint. This is the one thing Catra needs her to do and she’s damn well going to do it.

Floor four had been, by Entrapta’s best guess, some sort of biological research station. There had been a larger room she hadn’t been able to inspect all that closely because it had been home to 4 massive glass tanks, all of them shattered and the floor littered with glass. The sea of glass on the floor moved in miniature waves as four pipes set in the base of the tanks uselessly spurted water, trying to fill aquariums that weren’t there anymore. The ocean had rounded off the glass shards over the years and it wasn’t that Entrapta thought the room was dangerous to walk into, just that it had obviously not contained what they were looking for and she’d been forced to ignore it.

Floor three, by contrast, seems more mechanically oriented. Entrapta passes large machines she doesn’t recognize and it’s agonizing to leave them be, but they’re too big to move and she doesn’t have time to stop and figure out what they do. Prioritize. She has to prioritize. At least one of the machines has a very clear and obvious function - it’s pumping water through clear pipes. Probably the source of the water trying to reach the destroyed aquariums upstairs. Entrapta makes a note of it and moves on.

And then she finds it. Absurdly simple and obvious - it’s in the direct middle of the building. A small circular room with a door on the fritz that keeps getting caught between being fully open and half open, unable to close all the way. Entrapta leaps through the door to avoid getting hit by it and the power source is just… right there.

It’s a flat crystal, not unlike the two she’s worked with before, and set into a stone pedestal. It’s deep blue and glowing faintly, possibly just because it’s in use but Entrapta isn’t ready to rule out a natural glow just yet. She glances around the room, trying to memorize any details that might help her study this item later, but if there’s any clues in the stone pedestal, they’re inside of it and Entrapta doesn’t have the time or the strength to crack it open.

Entrapta doesn’t even have time to stop and consider any potential consequences of reaching out and grabbing the power source from the pedestal.

The low background hum of the machinery fades out. The broken door freezes in place, stuck in a mostly open position. The lights turn off. Entrapta waits for the telltale rumble of the ruin sinking back into the waves, but there’s nothing. Maybe without the power source, it can’t retract again? That’d be logical.

In the silence, she hears the distinct sound of claws scraping across stone from elsewhere on the floor and multiple voices suddenly shouting.

 _Catra_.

The building is dark again now that the power source is tucked away in her toolbelt, but Entrapta remembers the layout and she knows that if Catra found a way out, she didn’t find it in any of the places Entrapta looked. Sound echoes strangely through the building but it gets louder as she starts to find hallways where there’s light peeking around the corners. With the walls as slimy as they are, Entrapta can’t haul herself up them to hide and the ceiling isn’t nearly tall enough anyway. She’s forced to slow down and slink through the shadows instead, putting one foot carefully in front of the other until she finds the source of the noise.

There’s a long open balcony with cranks on either side of the interior walls and a metal cable connecting them. Entrapta suspects there used to be a net attached to that cable but it’s not there anymore. This was probably for reeling in biological samples.

Right now though, it’s being used as an arena. She-Ra has her back to Entrapta and Catra is cornered on the end of the balcony, not that being cornered has ever stopped her from fighting back. It’s a long drop behind her to open ocean and while they’re only on the third story and a fall from this height wouldn’t kill her, it’d probably really hurt. The only reason the fight isn’t already over is because She-Ra can’t keep her balance on the algae as well as Catra can. Entrapta has no idea where Glimmer, Bow, and Mermista are but it doesn’t matter either. She needs to get Catra and they need to leave, which means she needs to get She-Ra out of this situation and Entrapta definitely can’t beat She-Ra in a fight.

Entrapta shifts slightly to get a better vantage point and her feet nearly slide out from under her again. All this damn - wait. Entrapta’s eyes flicker from the algae coating the floor to the cranks on either side of the balcony to She-Ra’s oblivious back.

_There’s no such thing as cheating in combat._

Entrapta braces her feet on the slimy floor as best she can and coils her hair like a spring against the wall. The real key to this plan is not also hitting Catra, so she waits for an opportune angle and hopes for quick reflexes from her friend. A moment where Catra can clearly see her coming but She-Ra can’t.

Like now.

Entrapta shoves herself off the wall, rocketing forward as she slides on the algae. She quickly whips her hair forward to grab the cranks and slingshot herself forward, giving her even more momentum. She practically flies towards the end of the balcony and at the last moment, she leaps.

Catra’s eyes go wide as soon as she realizes what’s happening and she drops to the floor. She-Ra spins around but it’s too late.

Entrapta catches her straight in the face with both feet in a flying kick - not what she’d meant to do necessarily but that was She-Ra’s fault for turning around. She-Ra reels backwards, trips over Catra’s prone form, and tips over the balcony.

Unfortunately, Entrapta has neglected to come up with a plan to stop her own momentum and she goes right over the side with her, exacerbated by She-Ra grabbing her wrist in a bone crushing grip. Entrapta tries to correct herself by grabbing at the balcony with her hair but it’s far too slick.

Then Catra grabs her leg.

All of Entrapta’s momentum stops as sharp claws dig bloody lines through her pants and up her right calf. She’d probably yell in pain about it except that She-Ra is still holding on to her wrist and a split second later, all of _her_ momentum stops too when she rips Entrapta’s left arm out of its socket.

Entrapta has never experienced her brain just… blanking out before. A sudden cessation of all thoughts because every nerve ending in her body has started screaming itself hoarse. There’s claws in her leg and a massive weight dangling from her dislocated arm and her wrist might be broken too but honestly at this point it’s all just combining together into one burning mess.

“LET GO!”

Entrapta has no idea who’s screaming but it’s absurd that _they’re_ screaming when _she’s_ the one being ripped in two.

“YOU HAVE TO LET HER GO, ADORA! YOU’RE HURTING HER!”

They’re both hurting her, oh god it hurts. She has no idea what her hair is doing. Claws, she thinks? It’s digging into something wet and solid but whether that’s someone’s body or the algae covered balcony, she can’t tell. An angry part of her hopes it’s a body but the terrified part of her just hopes she’s hanging on. She can’t swim like this. She can’t do anything like this.

“ADORA! LET! GO!”

The weight on her arm disappears so suddenly that Entrapta nearly blacks out. She can’t feel anything but pain radiating from her arm and shoulder and leg and -

“C’mon, c’mon, help me out here Entrapta, up!”

Between the claws of hair gripping the balcony so tightly she’s ripped grooves in solid stone and Catra hauling her upwards, Entrapta makes it back onto solid ground. The instant she does, Catra drags Entrapta into her lap and pets her hair while Entrapta cries and shakes. She’s saying something but Entrapta is well past hearing it.

She has no idea how long they sit there until a much larger body reaches down to take her from Catra. Scorpia lifts her gently and braces Entrapta against her chest before saying “Sorry,” in her ear in a whisper. Entrapta might ask her what for but Catra grabs her aching arm and forces it back into the socket with grim determination.

This time, mercifully, Entrapta _does_ black out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short epilogue in two parts. Try not to blame anyone for their stances here - politics and emotions are both complicated.

“Adora? Mermista? Are either of you going to tell us what happened?” The eerie quiet of the Brightmoon meeting room is broken by Glimmer and Adora winces.

Only Mermista had been uninjured by the time they got back to Salineas. Bow had been paralyzed by Scorpia’s venom, Glimmer had a huge burn on her back that she’d said had come from a near miss with a robot Scorpia had with her (Emily, Adora thinks sadly), and Adora’s entire face has been purpling into one big bruise ever since she transformed back into her normal form when Mermista fished her out of the water.

Glimmer had told them what happened with her and Bow but when it was Adora and Mermista’s turn to explain, they’d both been silent. Adora just… couldn’t imagine telling the story more than once. And this was going to be something they all needed to hear.

Even now in the meeting room with everyone gathered, Adora can’t look at them. She’s staring at her own hands, wondering if it will ever be possible to forget the way it feels to crush someone’s bones with her bare hands. If she has to live forever knowing exactly how it feels when delicate bones shatter in her grip.

“Adora.” Mermista’s voice makes Adora’s head snap up. “You have to tell them. I don’t know the whole story.”

Every princess in the room is staring at her, along with Queen Angella. Even Frosta has shown up for this and looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. The fact that everyone came, even with no explanation for why they were being summoned, means that Adora owes it to them not to waste their time. She clears her throat and then stops as she tries to figure out where to start.

Mermista apparently takes her silence as unwillingness to speak. “Entrapta’s working for the Horde.”

There's a beat of silence before the entire room erupts and although it’s not where Adora wanted to start, she’s grateful that someone else could spit those words out. Adora’s not sure she could. Although she could do without the chaotic din of noise that’s happening now.

Queen Angella stands abruptly and slams her palms on the table, silencing everyone. “You told me Entrapta was killed during Glimmer and Bow's rescue. Now you’re telling me she defected?”

“We had every reason to think she’d died,” Bow says, distressed and clutching at his hair. “She - she was trapped in a room meant to incinerate all organic material! There was no way she could have survived it.”

“Well she kicked me off the balcony of that ruin yesterday so she’s definitely alive,” Adora says quietly, pointing at her own bruised face.

“Are you sure it was her?” Netossa demands. “What if it was some kind of Horde trick?”

“I broke her wrist and dislocated her arm.” There’s a sharp intake of breath around the room and Adora looks down at her hands again, shamefaced. “It… it wasn’t on purpose. We were falling and I grabbed her and I forgot how _small_ she is compared to She-Ra and I just -”

“Adora, she kicked you first,” Mermista interrupts.

Adora shakes her head. “It wasn’t that far of a fall and she probably knew that. I should have just taken it.”

“You need to start from the beginning,” Frosta says. “None of this makes sense and it won’t until we have all the details.”

So Adora tells them about rushing past Scorpia to chase Catra’s voice through the ruins, not realizing that Catra wasn’t alone. She tells them about catching up to Catra just as all the lights in the building turned off, realizing as soon as the words leave her mouth that of course that had been Entrapta’s doing - who else in the ruins knew a single thing about how First Ones technology worked? She tells them about backing Catra out onto the balcony over the ocean, convinced she could force a surrender with the knowledge that Catra couldn’t swim. She tells them about two steel-toed boots slamming into her face like a cannonball and launching her backwards off the balcony, about Catra catching Entrapta and Adora catching herself on Entrapta.

Her voice cracks there but Mermista steps in smoothly, telling them about how she’d been outside dealing with the two Horde ships and she’d capsized one when she heard someone howling in pain and she’d looked up to see the three of them. She tells them about Catra screaming at Adora to let go and the blood running down Entrapta’s leg and the way her hair thrashed and slammed into the balcony to try and drag herself up, knocking chunks of stone off into the ocean. She tells them about Adora letting herself fall and Catra hauling Entrapta to safety and that was the last she saw of it because she dived into the water to make sure Adora didn’t drown.

“She… she could be a prisoner?” Perfuma offers weakly when Mermista falls silent. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be with them?”

“Emily was with Scorpia,” Glimmer says, voice flat. “If Entrapta was a prisoner, they wouldn’t let her keep a robot that can melt people.”

“The Horde’s never had an interest in First Ones stuff before either,” Adora adds. “Entrapta’s the only person who cares."

“I think the more obvious clue,” Frosta says coldly, “is that Catra was losing and Entrapta stepped in to help her. If she wanted to escape the Horde, she could have assisted She-Ra or she could have even done nothing and just let her win. Instead, she kicked you off a balcony.”

“I don’t understand why she’d join up with them. She was with us and then she just what? Changed her mind?” Spinerella asks, looking frustrated.

Bow, who has been staring at the ceiling in silence, answers her with a sigh. “Why not? We didn’t even try to see if she survived. Sounds like they’re letting her play with all their toys and even going out of their way to get new stuff for her that she’s interested in. And the attack on Brightmoon is making a lot more sense now that I know how their robots all got upgraded so quickly. It was an army of Emilys.”

“This information cannot leave this room.”

Every person at the table whips around to look at the Queen, who stands at the head of the table looking grim.

“Word of this cannot get out. It will demoralize too many of our troops and spread fear through the citizens that a member of the Princess Alliance could betray the Rebellion. It would also irreparably damage our relations to the Kingdom of Dryl.”

“Dryl is in chaos already,” Netossa argues. “There’s no heir to the throne besides Entrapta, even if she wasn’t all that interested in ruling.”

Queen Angella frowns. “I know, but their grief has made them fiercely loyal to the cause. They’re angry at the Horde and we need their infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities. And worse - Dryl shares their northern border with the Crimson Wastes. It’s always been a heavily disputed border but if they found out their princess chose to side with the Horde after being seemingly abandoned by us? There would be infighting but I suspect a large portion of Dryl would stand behind Entrapta, right or wrong.”

“At which point the Crimson Wastes will extend an offer of protection to Dryl and it immediately becomes Horde territory, with easy access to the multiple Rebellion kingdoms Dryl shares its other borders with, like Plumeria, Brightmoon, and my own kingdom,” Frosta concludes. “You are correct - this is dangerous information.”

Perfuma stands up angrily. “So what are we supposed to do? Just ignore that she’s with _them?!_ ”

“We can’t ignore it,” Bow says softly. “Entrapta’s going to revolutionize their technology and we recruited her in the first place because we needed her to help us keep up with what the Horde _already_ had.”

“I am not suggesting we ignore this,” Queen Angella says. “We are likely going to have to change our entire strategy for dealing with the Horde because of her. I am only saying this is information that’s on a need to know basis only.”

Adora bites her lip, then nods reluctantly. Slowly, the others all do the same - some looking miserable, others angry. This was information none of them wanted and Adora hates that she was the one to bring it to them.

“Should we try to get her back?” Glimmer asks in a small voice. “Even just… as a prisoner?”

Her mother’s face contorts in an unreadable expression and Adora winces.

“She apparently escaped from a death trap in seconds and you think we can contain her in a jail cell?” Netossa asks dubiously.

Glimmer ducks her head, embarrassed. “No, I just… I know she won’t work with us but if we could stop her from working with the Horde...“

“Then she’d die.” Heads jerk around at Adora’s flat pronouncement. “Hordak obviously finds Entrapta useful - he wouldn’t be letting her walk around free if she wasn’t proving her value to him every day. If we took her away from him, he might try to get her back but if it wasn’t feasible, he’d just send someone to kill her. If he can’t have her, nobody can.”

Glimmer, Bow, and Perfuma all look about ready to cry and Adora hates this. She hates it so much.

Mermista shoots an apologetic glance at Adora before she says, “We have to just… let her go. There’s nothing we can do about it for now and we have to focus on the bigger picture. We’re at war with the entire Horde and she’s just a small piece of that.”

“A dangerous piece, but otherwise correct,” Queen Angella says with a note of finality. “I think all of us could use a break from this discussion. We’ll adjourn this meeting to… process. Hopefully we’ll be able to have a more rational discussion tomorrow.”

Glimmer grabs Bow and teleports away immediately. She doesn’t come back for Adora and Adora doesn’t blame her.

All of them separate for the evening and Adora heads back to her own room. Maybe if she sleeps on it, it will all turn out to have been a bad dream. If she can even sleep at all.

 

~

 

Entrapta wakes slowly, which is unusual for her. She doesn’t immediately recognize where she is, but there’s a warm weight pressed against her right side and the sound of snoring coming from elsewhere in the room. She shifts a little to look and there’s a familiar grumble right next to her ear.

Catra is plastered to Entrapta’s side, face buried in her hair and one arm thrown over her stomach. Her tail is also looped around Entrapta’s leg, which has been heavily bandaged. She’s also pretty sure they’re in Catra’s bedroom, as the bed’s too big for either the infirmary or Entrapta’s own quarters. The snoring is coming from Scorpia, reclining on a pile of pillows and half slumped over on top of Emily. Entrapta’s not sure why she chose to sleep on the floor instead of going back to her own room but it makes her feel warm inside.

Which is a nice contrast to the overwhelming sensation of pain that’s all Entrapta can feel otherwise. Her shoulder aches, her leg feels raw, and her wrist is throbbing inside the cast that’s been put on it. Entrapta goes to lift her arm to get a better look at the cast but the mere act of trying to move it makes her gasp in pain.

Catra’s grip on her tightens. “Don’t do that.”

“I didn’t know it’d feel like that,” Entrapta wheezes.

“That arm's going to hurt for awhile. Eventually you’ll have to exercise it to make sure the muscles don’t stiffen up but right now just… don’t move it.”

“Noted.”

“...Do you remember what happened?”

Entrapta finds that an odd question. “Yes? Should I not?”

Catra shrugs carefully, trying not to jostle her. “Some people get amnesia about traumatic experiences.”

“Oh. No, I remember. Did you see my slingshot kick? It was good, right?”

Catra shakes slightly and it takes Entrapta a second to realize she’s trying to muffle her laughter so as not to wake Scorpia. “Yeah, I saw it. That was pretty slick. Maybe next time you can figure out how to stop too.”

Entrapta’s going to have to math out the physics of that but yes, she can probably figure it out. She means to respond but instead she lets out a yawn so big it makes her jaw click.

“Don’t worry about it right now,” Catra says, settling back into place. “You did good, but no more off-base excursions for you for awhile.”

Entrapta’s eyes are already drooping but she manages to mumble “Agreed,” before drifting off to sleep again, soothed by the low rumble of Catra’s purring.

**Author's Note:**

> Thirteen thousand words for a brand new fandom? Sure, why the fuck not.


End file.
